CALLED TO SERVE
‘A call is something you are passionate about and must do. It chooses you; you don’t choose it. And if you don’t do it, you have lost something’
It was another world when, in 1958, Mary entered the Order of the New Zealand Dominican Sisters. She joined a thriving congregation of 140 Dominican sisters but today there are just 40, mostly in their 80s. Very few religious orders take new postulants. Sisters are women who take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, who live communally and undertake apostolic work such as preaching the gospels mainly by teaching and nursing. Nuns live in strict enclosure, devoting their time to prayer and contemplation. Mary was given the religious name of Sister Chanel named for St Peter Chanel. (Not the fancy French couturier but a French Marist priest who was killed in Futuna in 1841 attempting to Christianize the country.) She wore a habit, which became ever simpler after the Second Vatican Council (1962— 65) cataclysmically freed many of the clergy and religious orders of Catholicism from the strictures of spiritual life. The Dominicans abandoned habits in the late 1970s and at the same time, Mary reassumed her own name. “We’ve largely abandoned the ritualistic elements such as rising at 5.30am for communal prayers and praying at a specific time of the day and evening,” she says. “At our age, we do what we can. I get up at about 7am but the old prayers don’t do anything for me these days. Painting is prayer. Gardening is prayer. However, the study of the scriptures is important to me. I spend 30 minutes in intentional silence daily.”
Teschemakers, once home to 140 boarding girls, had closed as a school in 1978, mainly because there weren’t enough sisters to teach and manage. In 1980, it became a conference and retreat centre. Mary worked there from 1990 to 2000 when the property was sold and its new owner gifted her a house and studio in the grounds, in perpetuity.
During that time came the third act. While Mary remains a Dominican sister and is active in her congregation, running monthly scripture classes and keeping in close contact with pupils at nearby co-educational St Kevin’s College, Mary accepted her third call – painting – at 57.
“A call is something you are passionate about and must do. It chooses you; you don’t choose it,” she says. “You don’t have a choice. And if you don’t do it, you have lost something.
“Several aunts, my grandparents, several nieces and nephews have painted – some more seriously than others. There’s a significant emphasis on art among the Dominicans. The Early Renaissance painter Fra Angelico was a Dominican. His inspiring 15th-century works include such masterpieces as the
Annunciation, the San Marco Altarpiece, and the Adoration of the Magi.
“I was also influenced by Colin McCahon’s work, which is part-symbolism, part-realism, part-abstract. I was drawn to the German expressionists, too.
“Then I discovered my true self-expression in abstract painting. I just tried it, and it was as if I had come home. I found where I belonged.”
Many of her earlier paintings included verses written by poets: some 13th- and 14th-century Dominican mystics and others such as Gerard Manley Hopkins (a Victorian poet and Jesuit priest), T. S. Eliot (the American/English 20th-century poet and literary heavyweight) and New Zealand poets James K. Baxter and Allen Curnow. “All the poets I’m influenced by – including the New Zealanders – speak about the mystery of life. And you can only speak about that mystery through art, poetry, music. All of these, when well-wrought, are an exploration of that mystery.”
She still observes a vow of poverty, she says, and doesn’t earn any money from her work. “It goes into our congregation. Each year we present a simple budget and the congregation supplies us with what we need. If I need a new car or a washing machine, I can call on them for it.
“So I have more security than somebody else who is struggling alone. But I’m not free to just spend money – and I wouldn’t want to. That’s one thing about being a sister – we live simply as a matter of principle. We’re very dedicated to social justice so we take a big part in justice meetings and petitioning for specific causes.”
Mary’s work is sold through Timaru’s York Street Gallery and a small roadside gallery in Athol in Southland. But most of her paintings are available through Crafted, the artisan’s collective in Oamaru’s Victorian precinct.
Mary says Crafted provides another community for her. “Fifteen artists and artisans from throughout North Otago; each member contributes half a day each week to running the gallery. We pay a commission and an artist’s fee to cover overheads. We hold a monthly meeting and socialize from time to time.”
It’s a Sunday in late winter and Mary has issued an invitation to her house for lunch. But first, it’s off to the Waitaki farmers market where she buys ciabatta from Ed the Dutch baker and a selection of Whitestone Cheeses.
It has been raining but the sun comes out from behind the clouds. It sparkles in the puddles and Mary, as Mary is want to do, does a little light-hearted dance.